The Illinois State gymnastics team is riding a wave of confidence as the Redbirds enter their second meet of the season and prepare to take on Southeast Missouri State, in a quadrangular meet against the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh and Centenary College in Louisiana.
After achieving a new team scoring record and setting a new team beam record in their season opener, the Birds are headed to Missouri to see if they can duplicate the success of last weekends meet in Normal.
Right now our attitude is very positive. Our goal is to improve performances, said Head Coach Jill Hollembeak.
Last weekend, there were some exceptional performances against Western Michigan, but some room for improvement as well.
After last weekends meet, senior Dana Luther said, What we did today was not our difficult vaultsprobably about average. We have a lot harder vaults that we can do. Further on down the season, we will start throwing our bigger vaults. I think we kinda went on the safe side today to get our confidence up.
Another factor contributing to the Redbirds' confidence is the fact that they won against Southeast Missouri Stateperhaps their biggest threat this weekendin head-to-head competition last season.
Hollembeak noted, Southeast Missouri is a good, solid team. Two years ago, they consistently beat us, but last year, the tables turned.
Southeast Missouri State lost to Iowa in its season opener last weekend, only scoring 187.325 points, as opposed to Illinois States 195.125.
The University of Wisconsin at Oshkosh has both a win and a loss on its side so far this season, but has failed to score much more than 170 points in both meets.
Centenarys squad will open its season in Missouri when it takes on Illinois State, Southeast Missouri State and the University of Wisconsin.
